Glads

Glads is a 16x20 acrylic painting on stretched canvas - and it is not new. The original version of this painting was done in 2012. But I was never really happy with it, it just didn't work for me. And 6 years ago, my painting technique & style differed. This sat in my studio all this time, never shown or even looked at! But yesterday I decided it was time for it to either "get better" or "get out." And so a re-do was in order.

I belong to a Facebook group of artists (actually, I belong to quite a few) - but this one is Painters helping Painters. So I posted the original image & simply said "what would you do to make this better?" Then I listened.

Here's the original image:

There were things I liked, but there was a lot I did not like. And 2 major things stood out: no focal point so everything was vying for attention and all the colors were the same intensity, making it way to vibrant.

So I chose to bring all the flowers into the same color family, and used various washes to create some depth in the bunch. I toned down some of the greens as well.

The end result is a much more cohesive group of Gladioli flowers, and the eye can travel around the scene without it jumping into the viewers face!

I like it enough that it's off to the gallery this weekend for the next rotation. From closet to gallery in a few days - love it. Not all re-do's work out, but what a great learning experience to rework some of your older pieces.